baseball

baseball,

bat-and-ball sport known as the national pastime of the United States. It derives its name from the four bases that form a diamond (the infield) around the pitcher's mound.

Basic Rules

Teams consist of nine players who use a leather-covered hard ball, a wooden (in the professional game) or aluminum bat, and padded gloves. Additionally, the batter, catcher, and home-plate umpire wear special protective gear. Teams alternate turns in the field and at bat, the home team batting last. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning, and nine innings constitute a game. In the field there are a pitcher, a catcher, four infielders, and three outfielders. The pitcher throws overhand, employing a variety of deliveries (fastball, curve, knuckleball, etc.), from the raised pitcher's mound to home plate, a distance of 60.5 ft (18.4 m). An opposing batter attempts to hit the pitches and safely reach base, while the fielders attempt to put the batter out through various plays. A batter who misses three pitches, or fails to swing at three judged hittable, is out on "strikes"; but if the pitcher first throws four pitches out of the strike zone, the batter obtains a base on balls, or "walks" to first base. A run is scored every time a batter becomes a runner and crosses home plate after touching each base in the prescribed order. When the fielding team puts out three batters (or runners), the teams exchange places. If the score is tied at the end of nine innings, play continues into extra innings until one team has scored more runs than the other in an equal number of turns at bat.

History

Early History

Stick-and-ball games were in existence as far back as ancient Egypt. However, modern baseball developed from variations of the English game of rounders, from related regional and local games, and from children's games like "one old cat," all of which had evolved through centuries. The traditional story that Abner DoubledayDoubleday, Abner,
1819–93, once credited as originator of baseball and Union general in the American Civil War, b. Saratoga co., N.Y., grad. West Point, 1842. The A. G.
..... Click the link for more information. invented baseball in 1839 in Cooperstown, N.Y., has been discredited. Rather, in the 1840s and 50s members of the New York Knickerbocker Club standardized some of the features still in use today, modifying rules used by older clubs to codify fundamental rules for the game. It is widely thought that the first game of modern baseball was played by the Knickerbockers in the fall of 1845 in a park called Elysian Fields in Hoboken, N.J. In 1857 the Knickerbockers' Daniel L. "Doc" AdamsAdams, Doc
(Daniel Lucius Adams), 1814–1899, American baseball player and team executive, b. Mont Vernon, N.H., grad. Yale (1835), Harvard Medical School (1838). After working in his father's medical practice and in Boston, he moved to New York City.
..... Click the link for more information. presided at a convention during which the modern standards regarding the number of players and innings and the dimensions of the infield were adopted; the Knickerbockers' Louis WadsworthWadsworth, Louis Fenn,
1825–1908, American baseball player, b. Litchfield, Conn., grad. Washington College (now Trinity College), Hartford, 1844. After practicing law in New York City and presiding as a judge in New Jersey, he followed (1850s and early 60s) his passion for
..... Click the link for more information. also was an influential presence at the convention. Sportswriter Henry ChadwickChadwick, Henry,
1824–1908, Anglo-American journalist who helped popularize baseball in the United States, b. Exeter, England. Moving to Brooklyn, N.Y., with his family in 1837, he was a cricket reporter for the New York Times
..... Click the link for more information. edited (1860–81) the first published guide to the game, and though the rules continue to change by small degrees, by 1900 the game was essentially that of today.

The Development of Professional Baseball in the United States

In the mid-19th cent. baseball was primarily popular among local clubs in the Northeast, often made up of members of the same occupation. Eventually, competition broadened, and an organization to promote standardized rules and facilitate scheduling, the National Association of Baseball Players, was formed in 1858. The movement of Union soldiers during the Civil War helped to spread the game, and increased opportunities for leisure, improved communications, and easier travel after the war fostered a wider competitive base and increased interest.

In 1869, Harry Wright organized the Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball's first professional team, and took them on a 57-game national tour, during which they were unbeaten. Seeking to expand on the Reds' success, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players in 1871 chartered nine teams in eight cities as the first professional league. In the 1870s a number of competing leagues were formed, including the National League, which soon became the predominant association.

Financial hardships, gambling-related scandals, and franchise upheaval plagued all the leagues, and a players' revolt in 1890, which resulted in a short-lived Players Association, weakened the National League. A competing league, the Western Association, changed its name to the American League in 1900 and placed clubs in several eastern cities. In 1903 the champions of the American and National leagues met for the first time in what became known as the World Series.

Both leagues fought off the challenge of the Federal League in 1914–15, but baseball's popularity and stability were threatened when the 1919 Chicago White Sox conspired to lose the World Series. Club owners then hired Judge Kenesaw Mountain LandisLandis, Kenesaw Mountain
, 1866–1944, American jurist and commissioner of baseball (1921–44), b. Millville, Butler co., Ohio, grad. Union College of Law (now Northwestern Univ. law school), 1891.
..... Click the link for more information. as the first baseball commissioner (1920–44) and charged him with resolving the crisis. Landis banned eight members of the "Black Sox" for life (despite their acquittal in a court of law), helping to lift suspicion from the professional game.

The Golden Years

The years between 1920 and World War II were the heyday of Babe RuthRuth, Babe
(George Herman Ruth), 1895–1948, American baseball player, considered by many the greatest of all baseball players, b. Baltimore. Early Life

When he was seven years old his parents placed him in St.
..... Click the link for more information. , the game's preeminent legend. Other stars made their names as well: Ruth's durable New York Yankee teammate, Lou GehrigGehrig, Lou
(Louis Gehrig) , 1903–41, American baseball player, b. New York City. He studied and played baseball at Columbia, where he was spotted by a scout for the New York Yankees.
..... Click the link for more information. ; the contentious batting champion Ty CobbCobb, Ty
(Tyrus Raymond Cobb), 1886–1961, American baseball player, b. Narrows, Ga. In 1905 he joined the Detroit Tigers as center fielder and in his 24 years in the American League was one of the most spectacular and brilliant players in the history of the game.
..... Click the link for more information. ; outstanding pitchers like Lefty GroveGrove, Robert Moses
(Lefty Grove), 1900–1975, American baseball player, b. Lonaconing, Md. A left-handed pitcher, he played for the Philadelphia Athletics (1925–33) and Boston Red Sox (1934–41).
..... Click the link for more information. , Dizzy DeanDean, Jerome Herman
(Dizzy Dean), 1911–74, American baseball player, b. Lucas, Ark. His name was originally Jay Hanna Dean. A colorful right-handed pitcher, Dean performed brilliantly (1930–37) for the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Walter JohnsonJohnson, Walter Perry,
1887–1946, American baseball player, b. Humboldt, Kans. He began playing with the Washington Senators of the American League in 1907. A right-handed pitcher, he won 417 games while losing 279 before he retired from active play in 1927.
..... Click the link for more information. ; graceful Yankee center fielder Joe DiMaggioDiMaggio, Joe
(Joseph Paul DiMaggio) , 1914–99, American baseball player, b. Martinez, Calif. One of the most charismatic of 20th-century sports figures, "Joltin' Joe" joined the New York Yankees of the American League in 1936 and quickly rose to stardom, winning the
..... Click the link for more information. ; and sluggers Hank Greenberg and Jimmie FoxxFoxx, Jimmie
(James Emory Foxx), 1907–67, American baseball player, b. Sudlersville, Md. Foxx played for the Philadelphia Athletics (1926–35), the Boston Red Sox (1936–42), the Chicago Cubs (1942–44), and the Philadelphia Phillies (1945).
..... Click the link for more information. , among others. Fans flocked to the large stadiums built in the 1920s.

When the Depression threatened spectatorship in the 1930s, night baseball, experimented with a half century earlier, became reality. Beginning in Cincinnati in 1935, organized baseball gradually became primarily an evening event. A network of minor league teams, scattered across the nation in smaller cities and towns, supported the two major leagues with developing talent and fan interest.

Integration of Professional Baseball

During World War II, many major league stars served in the armed forces. By the mid-1940s most had returned to their teams, but major league baseball continued to exclude black players, who, barred by a color line drawn in the 1880s, showcased their skills in separate leagues, especially the Negro National League (1920, folded late 1920s, revived 1933), the Eastern Colored League (1923, folded late 1920s), and the Negro American League (1936). Black players like Satchel PaigePaige, Satchel
(Leroy Paige) , 1906–82, American baseball player, b. Mobile, Ala. He began pitching in 1924, joined his first professional team two years later, and became a star in the Negro leagues during the 1930s.
..... Click the link for more information. , Buck LeonardLeonard, Buck
(Walter Fenner Leonard), 1907–1997, African-American baseball player, b. Rocky Mount, N.C. Beginning in 1933, he played semiprofessional ball with the Baltimore Stars and the Brooklyn Royal Giants.
..... Click the link for more information. , Josh GibsonGibson, Josh
(Joshua Gibson) 1911–47, American baseball player, b. Buena Vista, Ga. A catcher and the long-time batterymate of Satchel Paige, Gibson was called "the Babe Ruth of the Negro Leagues.
..... Click the link for more information. , and Judy JohnsonJohnson, Judy
(William Julius Johnson), 1899–1989, American baseball player, b. Snow Hill, Md. His father, a boxing coach, wanted him to be a prizefighter, but he started playing semipro baseball in 1919 and was the third baseman for the Negro National League's Hilldale
..... Click the link for more information. , among the best in baseball, often played before large crowds, "invisible" to the white public. In 1947, Branch RickeyRickey, Branch,
1881–1965, American baseball executive, b. Stockdale, Ohio. As manager or executive, he was with the St. Louis Browns (1913–15), the St. Louis Cardinals (1917–42), the Brooklyn Dodgers (1943–50), and the Pittsburgh Pirates (1950–59).
..... Click the link for more information. , Brooklyn's general manager, began the integration of the major leagues by bringing Jackie RobinsonRobinson, Jackie
(Jack Roosevelt Robinson), 1919–72, American baseball player, the first African-American player in the modern major leagues, b. Cairo, Ga. He grew up in Pasadena, Calif., where he became an outstanding athlete in high school and junior college.
..... Click the link for more information. to the Dodgers. Weathering great pressure and the hatred of many players and fans, Robinson became one of the most electrifying performers in the game, paving the way for other black stars like Willie MaysMays, Willie Howard, Jr.
("Say Hey" Willie Mays), 1931–, American baseball player, b. Fairfield, Ala. He began his professional career at 17 with the Black Barons of the Negro National League.
..... Click the link for more information. and Hank AaronAaron, Hank
(Henry Louis Aaron), 1934–, U.S. baseball player, b. Mobile, Ala. A durable outfielder and consistent hitter noted for his powerful wrists and explosive swing, Aaron joined a Negro League exhibition team, the Indianapolis Clowns, at 18.
..... Click the link for more information. . Integration became a fact of baseball life so quickly that by the mid-1950s there were more African-American players on major league teams than there had been in the Negro leagues at their height of popularity just a decade earlier.

Expansion and Labor Conflict

The locations of major league franchises, stable for 50 years, became unsettled in the 1950s. The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee in 1953, and other teams joined a westward migration made feasible by the expansion of air travel and attractive by population shifts (and, ultimately, by the promise of regional television coverage). The 1957 exodus of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants for California jarred New Yorkers but helped cement the game's nationwide base. In 1961, the two major leagues entered into a period of expansion, gradually adding new teams.

In the 1960s and 1970s, however, baseball's popularity was challenged by disillusionment of the young with established institutions, by the television-spurred boom of the National Football League (television was also presumed largely responsible for shrinkage of the minor-league system), and by divisiveness within the sport over new artificial playing surfaces, indoor stadiums, and rule changes like the American League's 1973 introduction of a designated hitter to bat for the pitcher (the National League never adopted the measure).

Player-club relations were tumultuous in the 1970s. The Major League Baseball Players' Association, formed in 1966, pushed for an end to the reserve clause, a contractual stipulation that bound a player to a club unless he was traded, released, or retired. The clause existed because of baseball's exemption from federal antitrust laws, and it be used to bind a player, against his will, to one team for his whole career; it also served to hold down players' salaries. Although the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld the clause three times (1915, 1922, 1953) in 50 years, a mid-1970s arbitrator declared several players "free agents," and thereafter the sport was obliged to allow freer player movement among bidding teams. The Players' Association continued to strengthen the bargaining positions, salaries, and pensions of players through the 1970s and 1980s. Conflict between team owners and players represented by the Association resulted in numerous work stoppages after 1972, the worst of which canceled the final third of the 1994 season, including the World Series.

Despite these distractions, however, the major-league game continued to flourish. As Babe Ruth was held to have carried the game through the post–Black SoxBlack Sox scandal,
episode in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox, the American League champions, were banned from baseball in 1921 for having conspired with gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.
..... Click the link for more information. era, the breaking of Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games-played record in 1996 by Cal RipkenRipken, Cal, Jr.
(Calvin Edward Ripken, Jr.), 1960–, American baseball player, b. Havre de Grace, Md. The son of a long-time coach and manager in the Baltimore Orioles organization, he joined the team in 1981 as a third baseman.
..... Click the link for more information. , Jr. and the assault on the single-season home-run record by Mark McGwireMcGwire, Mark David
, 1963–, American baseball player, b. Pomona, Calif. A muscular first baseman who was a college and Olympic (1984) star, McGwire broke into the American League as Rookie of the Year in 1987 with the Oakland Athletics, hitting a record 49 home runs for a
..... Click the link for more information. and Sammy SosaSosa, Sammy
(Samuel Kevin Sosa Peralta) , 1968–, Dominican baseball player. An outfielder and designated hitter, he broke into the major leagues with the Texas Rangers and then the Chicago White Sox (both American League; AL) in 1989, moving to the Chicago Cubs (National
..... Click the link for more information. in 1998 were seen as "rescuing" the game from its self-inflicted troubles. By the late 1990s there were 30 teams in six divisions in the major leagues (limited interleague play was introduced in 1997), and attendance and television revenues were high.

In 2001 several records fell once again, as Barry BondsBonds, Barry Lamar,
1964–, American baseball player, b. Riverside, Calif. Bonds grew up surrounded by baseball; his father, Bobby Bonds, was a San Francisco Giants outfielder (1968–74), and the great Willie Mays was his godfather. Bonds left Arizona State Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. broke the single-season home-run record and other marks and Rickey HendersonHenderson, Rickey Henley,
1958–, American baseball player, b. Chicago. An outfielder with the Oakland Athletics (1979–84, 1989–93, 1994–95, 1998), New York Yankees (1985–89), Toronto Blue Jays (1993), San Diego Padres (1996–97, 2001), Anaheim
..... Click the link for more information. crowned his other accomplishments by setting the career record for runs scored. At the same time, however, a growing anabolic steroidanabolic steroid
or androgenic steroid
, any of a group of synthetic derivatives of testosterone that promote muscle and bone growth. Used to treat uncontrolled weight loss in wasting diseases, anabolic steroids have also been taken by bodybuilders and athletes seeking
..... Click the link for more information. scandal tarnished the game, tainting the achievements of some of baseball's biggest stars (eventually including McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds) and forcing the leagues to introduce testing for steroids in 2003 and to suspend players for their use in 2005. In 2007 the Mitchell report detailed information regarding past use of steroids and human growth hormone by 89 current and former players, and suggested changes in how the major leagues test for performance-enhancing drug use.

Amateur and International Baseball

Baseball's popularity has been spreading in recent decades, but it spread to a number of countries (Cuba, Japan) in the 1860s and 70s. The game is followed with fervent interest in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, other Caribbean countries, and elsewhere. The International Baseball Federation (IBAF) was founded in 1938 and now has 112 member countries; it has organized the Baseball World Cup since its founding. Baseball was made an Olympic sport in 1992, with the IBAF as the governing body, but it and women's fast-pitch softball were dropped beginning with the 2012 summer games. In 2006 the World Baseball Classic debuted, under the auspices of Major League Baseball, its players association, and other professional leagues, and sanctioned by IBAF. The tournament features 16 teams in four pools; Japan won in the inaugural year. Little League, a worldwide organization founded in 1937 for youngsters, continues to sponsor world championships in Williamsport, Pa. College baseball, for many years relatively insignificant, has become a major source of Olympic and professional players, and fan interest peaks each year at the College World Series, held in Omaha, Nebr. Softballsoftball,
variant of baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Invented (1888) in Chicago as an indoor game, it was at various times called indoor baseball, mush ball, playground ball, kitten ball, and, because it was also played by women, ladies' baseball.
..... Click the link for more information. , a form of baseball in which a larger ball and a smaller field are required, was one of the most popular recreational sports of the 1990s.

Bibliography

See H. Seymour, Baseball: The Early Years (1960), Baseball: The Golden Age (1971), and Baseball: The People's Game (1990); L. S. Ritter, The Glory of Their Times (1966); D. Voigt, American Baseball (3 vol., 1966–83); R. W. Peterson, Only the Ball Was White (1970); W. Goldstein, Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball (1989, repr. 2009); J. M. DiClerico and B. J. Pavelec, The Jersey Game (1991); G. Ward and K. Burns, Baseball (1994); P. Williams and W. P. Kinsella, When the Giants Were Giants (1994); C. C. Alexander, Our Game: An American Baseball History (1997) and Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era (2002); M. E. Lomax, Black Baseball Entrepeneurs, 1860–1901 (2003); B. Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators (2003); N. Lanctot, Negro League Baseball (2004); H. Bryant, Juicing the Game (2005); F. Vincent, The Only Game in Town (2006); P. Morris, But Didn't We Have Fun? An Informal History of Baseball's Pioneer Era, 1843–1870 (2008); J. Thorn, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game (2011); S. Banner, The Baseball Trust: A History of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption (2013); R. Weintraub, The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball's Golden Era (2013). See also The Baseball Encyclopedia (10th ed. 1996), N. Dawidoff, ed., Baseball: A Literary Anthology (2002), J. Thorn et al., ed., Total Baseball (8th ed. 2004), and L. Cassuto and S. Partridge, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Baseball (2011).

Baseball

a sport using a ball and a bat that is reminiscent of the Russian game lapta. It appeared in the USA during the early 1800’s. The first official match was played in 1820 in New York. In 1845 the first professional club was formed.

Baseball is popular in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Japan. The game is played by two teams of nine members on an area in the shape of a diamond with 90 ft (27.4 m) sides and “bases” (“homes”) at each corner. The players of the offensive team stand in turn at a base. By means of a bat they return a ball that is thrown to them, and while it is in flight they run from one base to another. The players of the defensive team attempt to catch the ball and “tag” the running opponent with it. When this has been done three times, the teams change places. The team having the greatest number of points (the largest number of runs around all the bases to their “home”) after nine such sessions is the winner. Also widespread in the USA, Japan, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and elsewhere is softball, a simpler version of baseball that can be played indoors and on small fields; also popular are such varieties of baseball as cricket in England, pesäpallo in Finland, and o’ma in Rumania.

S. V. GLIAZER

baseball

[′bās‚bȯl] (plasma physics) A machine used in controlled fusion research to confine a plasma; consists of a linear magnetic bottle sealed by magnetic mirrors at both ends, and has current-carrying structures, which resemble the seams of a baseball in shape, to stabilize the plasma.

baseball

traditional American sport and pastime. [Am. Sports: EB, I: 850]See: America

baseball

1. a team game with nine players on each side, played on a field with four bases connected to form a diamond. The object is to score runs by batting the ball and running round the bases 2. the hard rawhide-covered ball used in this game
www.majorleaguebaseball.com
www.baseball-links.com

Baseball

Related to Baseball: baseball equipment

Baseball

With a payroll of approximately 11,000 dollars, the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first professional baseball team.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Although certain laws have protected citizens from various forms of monopolistic practices for decades, the legal decisions surrounding "America's favorite pastime" have allowed it to remain exempt from most forms of government intervention. Through the years, Major League Baseball (MLB) has escaped measures that would have ended its exclusive control over contracts and copyrights and its all-around Monopoly on professional U.S. baseball. Meanwhile, as contracts and team expenditures have come to run well into the millions of dollars, many have come to see baseball as less of a sport than a business—and a business that should be regulated. The United States still reveres baseball, but fans, players, and owners all hope that government decisions will save it from labor strikes and a host of other ills. The government, however, continues to do little other than let baseball remain a special, nationally protected institution.

The professional growth of baseball—and some of its headaches—followed a natural economic progression. Much of the sport's origin is shrouded in myth, but it is thought that it got off to its humble start sometime in the nineteenth century. The first organized contest probably happened on June 19, 1846, between two amateur teams: the New York Nine and the Knickerbockers. In 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, a professional team, paved the way for other franchises to come into existence. In 1871, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players was born. The ensuing days belong to popular remembrance. Abner Doubleday formed the National League in 1876, and baseball has existed somewhere between game and profitable enterprise ever since.

From its early days, the courts have failed to see baseball as posing a threat to the laws of business. The monumental sherman anti-trust act of 1890 (15 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.)—a statute prohibiting monopolies—forbids undue restraint of trade on commerce between states. In 1920, an appeals court ruled that the fact that baseball operates on an interstate level was part of its unobjectionable nature as a sport (National League of Professional Baseball Clubs v. Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, 50 App. D.C. 165, 269 F. 681). It stated, in general reference to other forms of trade and commerce, that "the Sherman Anti-Trust Act … does not apply, unless the effect of the act complained of on interstate commerce is direct, not merely indirect or incidental." Baseball, the court found, did not pose a threat to the economy of the world of sports.

The National League case stemmed from allegations made by the Federal League's Baltimore Terrapins. In the early 1900s, the struggling Federal League had sought to become a venture of the major leagues and had competed with other major league franchises. But the National and American Leagues bought out many of the Federal teams, sometimes player by player, with offers they could not refuse. The Terrapins, one of the last surviving vestiges of the Federal League, sued the National League. Representatives of the Terrapins argued that MLB owners had treated the Terrapins with scorn, offering them only $50,000 in settlement for damages incurred by the buyouts. In court, the Terrapins argued that MLB had violated antitrust laws and had participated in monopolizing ventures.

The case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (National League, 259 U.S. 200, 42 S. Ct. 465, 66 L. Ed. 898 [1922]). In 1922, the Court made a classic decision. In an opinion written by Justice oliver wendell holmes jr., the Supreme Court declared baseball to be, first and foremost, a sport and not a business. In Holmes's words, baseball activities were "purely state affairs." The decision gave baseball the unique status of being the only official professional sports organization to be exempt from antimonopoly laws. In effect, the decision protected baseball as a national treasure.

The National League decision was reaffirmed in 1953 with Toolson v. New York Yankees, 346U.S. 356, 74 S. Ct. 78, 98 L. Ed. 64. In a brief statement, the Court ruled against the plaintiff, minor league player George Toolson. Toolson's arguments were based on the complaint that baseball was a monopoly that offered him unfair contract deals. The Court said Congress alone had been given the right to exercise powers that could break up the structure of baseball's professional organization.

The controversial issue in Toolson was baseball's reserve clause. This clause stood as the earliest symbol of the sport's underlying business nature. It stated that once a player had accepted a contract to play for a certain team, the player was bound to serve that team for one year and must enter into a new contract with the same team "for the succeeding season at a salary to be determined by the parties to such contract." It was agreed that if a player violated the reserve clause, the athlete would be guilty of "contract jumping" and would be ineligible to serve in any club of the leagues until formally reinstated.

The reserve clause guaranteed players little more than an income. Players attacked it. In the 1970s, Curtis C. Flood, center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, brought charges against Bowie K. Kuhn, acting commissioner of baseball. The issue was a player's Free Agency, which Flood had requested and Kuhn had denied. Free agency is the freedom to negotiate a contract with any team, basically a release from the reserve clause. Taking his case to the Supreme Court, Flood argued that the reserve clause unfairly prevented him from striking deals with other teams that would pay him more for his services. The Supreme Court decided on June 19, 1972, that it did not have the authority to act (Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258, 92 S. Ct. 2099, 32 L. Ed. 2d 728). Only baseball's acting commissioner could designate free agency.

Player discontent, as a reaction to the decision, set the stage for more free agency bids, and Arbitration between players and owners began in 1973. In January 1976, Andy Messersmith's success in obtaining free agency ushered in a new era of high stakes: players could now dictate certain terms of employment, and hence came the dawn of multimillion-dollar contracts.

Money was also at issue in a case related to another aspect of the game. After more than a century of professional play, in 1986, televised broadcasts of baseball and the Copyright laws surrounding them came into question. Players felt that the terms of their employment did not include their performances for television audiences. They insisted that the telecasts and the profits being derived from them were being made without their consent. In Baltimore Orioles v. Major League Baseball Players Ass'n, 805F.2d 663 (7th Cir. 1986), major league clubs sought a Declaratory Judgment that they possessed an exclusive right to broadcast games. The major league players argued that their performances were not copyrightable works because they lacked sufficient artistic merit. Refusing to cut into the control of MLB over the airwaves, the federal appellate court ruled that the telecasts were indeed copyrightable works and that clubs were entitled to the revenues derived from them.

Throughout these cases, decisions about the economy of baseball have been left to the players and owners. For this reason, baseball has been referred to as an anomaly in relation to the nation's antitrust laws, and its exemption has been called "an aberration confined to baseball" (Flood). The push for congressional action to eliminate this exemption reached a fever pitch with the baseball players' strike of 1994–95. The strike left many in baseball, including fans, disenfranchised. Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum, an Ohio Democrat who headed the subcommittee on antitrust laws, led the fight to remove the antitrust exemption from baseball. However, the 234-day strike ended in an agreement between owners and players, in which owners promised to pay "luxury taxes" on clubs with high payrolls. Congress was spared the necessity of acting.

Local communities, however, faced the possibility of losing their MLB franchises as the economics of baseball changed dramatically in the late 1990s. Major market teams, many of them now owned by corporations rather than wealthy individuals, drove up player payrolls. This hurt smaller market teams and teams owned by individuals who either lacked resources or the desire to match salaries. The Minnesota Twins, unable to secure a new, publicly funded baseball stadium, threatened to move to another state in 1997. The state of Minnesota sought unsuccessfully to probe the team's finances and that of MLB, but in the end the Twins could not secure a sale or move of the team.

Unable to stem rising costs, the baseball league proposed contracting two teams before the 2002 season. Under contraction, MLB would buy out the owners and distribute the players to other teams through a draft. The league argued that contraction would strengthen the financial well-being of the sport. The owners, however, needed to move quickly if contraction was to happen before the 2002 season.

The Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins were rumored to be the teams selected for contraction. In Minnesota, the operators of the Metrodome, where the Twins play their home games, sued the Twins and MLB, asking a state court to order the Twins to play the 2002 season. They sought to either win on the merits or delay contraction for a year. The judge issued a preliminary injunction and the Twins appealed, arguing that they did have an obligation to pay the rent for the season, but they could choose whether or not to play the season. The Minnesota Court of Appeals, in Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission v. Minnesota Twins Partnership, 638 N.W.2d 214 (2002), upheld the Injunction, which meant that contraction became impossible for the 2002 season. The baseball league later abandoned the concept of contraction, at least for the near future.

Cross-references

Sports Law.

baseball

base·ball

baseball

base•ball

Baseball

baseball

baseball

baseball

baseball,

Basic Rules

History

Early History

The Development of Professional Baseball in the United States

The Golden Years

Integration of Professional Baseball

Expansion and Labor Conflict

Amateur and International Baseball

Bibliography

Baseball

baseball

baseball

baseball

baseball

baseball

Baseball

Baseball

Further readings

Cross-references

baseball

Synonyms for baseball

noun a ball game played with a bat and ball between two teams of nine players

Synonyms

Related Words

noun a ball used in playing baseball

Related Words